Rice N Roll Market and Deli

Participating in the 2010 Taste the World coupon book.

Dennis and Paz Valenzuela, owners
215 N. Franklin St., Lancaster, PA 17602
717-672-0502
MTuWThFSa 11am-8pm

When you think of food from the Philippines, an Asian island nation, do Spanish tastes and the Spanish language come to mind? They should.

"Filipino food is a combination of Asian and Spanish," says Paz Valenzeuela. Spanish explorers named the country, settling there in the 1500s. "They brought the Spanish way of cooking," she says. "We are the only country in Asia that is influenced by Spain."

That's not all. The 300 years that Spain remained in control of the Philippines left a deep legacy of culture and language that Valenzuela notes you'll see in family names as well.

But the influence of Asia is there, in food as well as culture.

Lemongrass flavors many offerings, including chicken adobo. Rice vinegar is common. "We have the fresh eggrolls," Valenzuela says, explaining the wrappers are made from scratch.

Also try the Shanghai eggrolls, which has ground chicken, water chestnuts and a kick of pepper.

Tamarind is also a popular flavoring. "At home, we use the fresh tamarind from the tree," Valenzuela says. Her family, like others in provinces outside the enormous city of Manila, had a tamarind tree in the yard. Children were sent to pluck the fresh tamarind. "We took it for granted. You never realize it is so important," Valenzuela.

Today, Rice N Roll's Filipino ingredients come from stores in New Jersey and New York. The small market is meant to fill a void in Filipino food that Valenzuela and her family noticed when they moved to Lancaster four years ago.

The shop also taps into her lifelong interest in cooking and nutrition. "I'm very fascinated with food," she says.

A registered nurse who came to the United States in 1970 and moved from Chicago to New York two years later, Valenzuela still works some in New York - an opportunity to make the rounds of her favorite places, a bakery in New Jersey, shops and produce stands of Chinatown.

Rice N Roll gives her the opportunity to bring the mix of flavors and influences that goes into Filipino food to Lancaster County.

No matter what you order, check out the offerings in the market by the counter. And the freezer case offers a culture-crossing selection of frozen goodies, including red bean ice cream.

Did you know? The Philippines includes more than 7,000 islands, but most of the nation's population lives on fewer than a dozen of them.

written by Marla Pierson Lester; photos by Matthew Lester Photography